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Ок. Relatively new player here. (joined not long before release)

Here what i see in PoE.

Good

1)Art.
I really like locations and overal setting. Looks grim and dark the way i like it. Thx alot to guys who made this.

2)Music.
This is the reason behind not being in read-only forum lurking.
As to my personal taste, music is good. and music\location combo is just godlike in some cases. GGG did amazing job here. Truly epic.

3)Orb system.
At last no gold. it is fine and logical to use gold\platinum\zeny\usd\etc in games, but orb system just waaaaay more cool-loking and fun to use. And nice change after my D3 time too.

4)Skilldrasil system\ skill gem system
it` just awesome. Awesome and awesome again. And icons of nodes looks cool too).

5)No visible limitation to class building (at least on the first look)
claw withh? check. dual wand dielist? check. bow marauder? check.
Freedom is a nice thing. It makes you think, invent and adapt.

6)No Pay-to-win game.
Yea. i definitely hate "deepest-wallet-wins" games. Especially when there are so many of them.

7)D2+torchlight2 feeling
Yea, in the beginning, every new location make me feel playing good old diablo 2 with a slight torchlight twist. Nice and warm feeling really.

Summarising all that, GGG did a great job trying to make D3 looks like total bullshit, and granted me several nostalgic hours.

And then i hit gearwall...

Bad.



1)Gearwall
When i hit it, it was just like D3 inferno before multiple patches. Insanity in form of game mechanics. Sucks completely, taking into accaunt drop penalties in lower(than your level) areas. And here we come to...

1)Gambling system.
Sorry GGG, you have no crafting system. Few crafting moments? yes. Well developed crafting system? Big No.
What you have is a modified diablo 2 gambling. And no, it was bad back in D2, it`s bad now and ever will be.
Without reliable ways to gear up, and with heavy luck dependancy, being even a bit "unlucky" will at least frustrate a player, and can easily ruin his game and fun of playing.
But may be i can gear with a bit farming? haha...

3)D3-like drop.
What i hate the most in D3, is a drop system. Stupid, frustrating, unrewarding, bot-oriented incarnation of Activision greed.

Same here. Exactly. 99.8% of yellow items is a junk. 0.1% moderate. May be 0.1% items left is a good, but i just never saw them.
Unique? same like D3.
Orbs? Drop was better before release. Now is plain bad.
But no Activision. So why?

4)Nerfing
This was my impression while reading forums and changelogs.
Virtual universe making rule number(don`t remember really) state: "every part of game mechanics can, and will be abused by players." No exceptions.

Skill and gem system, is a system with built-in big red glowing "ABUSE ME!" banner, even if that is not what you want GGG.

So nerfing builds invented by community is a big slap in the face of people, who put their efforts to make theese builds.

And yea, it`s just like D3 mage atkspeed nerf;) I see here posts like in D3 forum. Different words, but same idea.


Summary:
Poe is great-looking game, especially for people, who got totally diappointed by World-of-real-money-AH 3. It reminds of good ol` days of D2, but there are a lot of alarming signs of PoE morphing to D3. Hope it`s only temporary issue...


Not english-speaker, so my english may be bad.

Hi, I think this game still needs some fixing. For myself, I love Diablo 2 and think Diablo 3 went horribly wrong.
I appreciate some of the ideas in PoE, like the charge-based flasks instead of potions or the silly health orbs in Diablo 3, and I also like the idea of replacing the gold system with useful items like identify scrolls.
But one of the most important aspects of any Action RPG like this is a solid, fun combat engine. And I fear you don't have that. Killing monsters feels a bit like a drag, and kind of boring. I'm not entirely sure why that is, but I believe it is due to the graphical way the monsters get hit / fall, and small stuff like that. Blizzard perfected this in Diablo 2, every monster feels a joy to kill. Sadly this is not the case in this game.
Also, there seems to be some delay and miscommunication between your servers and my client, and it doesn't seem to be the ping. It takes an unusual long time (~0,5 seconds) after using spells to run again, which makes classical run, dodge & gun gameplay difficult and straining. Also, there are many cases where a monster loses health like 0.5 seconds after your attack hits it, and there are often monsters which visually appear in a different location than their actual, physical one on the servers - in other words you seem to be hitting & standing in front of one, while its actually still far in the back.
In some extreme cases, this happens with whole groups of monsters, so you can suddenly be surrounded, lose a bunch of health in an instant, etc. Diablo 2 still has some of those issues as well, but they never felt as problematic as in this game. Also, let me note that its not rare, either - at least one of the monsters is at a different location, or gets hit too late, every 15 seconds of my playing time. It's truly annoying.
Besides that, I don't like there are no private games & that I have to see all those people in town like a regular MMO, I'm also no fan of the "let's have lots of little, insignificant perks", and the missing skill trees & stat points. Yes, there are stat points, but too few and you can't level them up yourself, which ruins the experience. Diablo 2 nailed skilltrees & statuspoints for a great, individual, interesting experience and there is no good reason in my opinion to not do the same with a game like it. You're just robbing people of possibilities & RPG feelings.
One good thing for the finish: I like many of your in-game texts, dialogues & speakers. Pretty good for a free 2 play. Also I appreciate you don't have to pay to advance in the game, this was an important decision to get right.

So yeah, the game shows promise, but some of the most important mechanics are flawed in my opinion. No idea if you can still do something about some / all of them at this point, but I feel you really need to. I might still play this game a bit 'cause I'm extremely bored at the moment. But I would not play this any further if it would cost something.

Hello

I have been playing this game now for about two weeks. Still learning much, and I still have much to learn. Aside from your random 'lottery' on sockets and links, I have little in the way of issues with your game. I made a suggestion on the feedback section on my take on the sockets/links, so I will not divulge my rants on those here.

The ONLY issue I have with your game is your auto-prediction calculations. I hit shift and cast EVERYWHERE when I play my ranged build and then suddenly, I will find my character in an adjoining room, alone (without my minions) facing down a hoarde of blue mobs I would otherwise be blasting at from a distance with a wall of minions between me and them. WHILE HOLDING SHIFT NO LESS!

I'm obsessed with this shift button, absolutely passionately in love with it, since, well I don't move and cast everywhere my eyes can see! AND MOST OF ALL I DON'T MOVE!! Yet, the prediction algorithm seems to take offense to this perverse love of the shift key and randomly ports me to a new location all by myself so that I can insta-die to mobs I normally would not associate with up close and personal. And forget about running away. By the time you sync up with the server, you have but a moment to go oh sh*t and run, only to die...

How do people play Hardcore like this? This cannot be your business model, for it absolutely will destroy any credibility you have if this is intentional. And if it isn't working as intended, perhaps a quality move would be to fix it, yes??

Thanks!

8/10 for your game overall imho.

I've been playing since full release and I have two thoughts that can sum up my impressions of the game:

1) Very fun and enjoyable. PoE took two things I love - ARPGs and sphere grids - and combined them. This is basically the game I was hoping D3 would be. While that comparison may not be fair, it is what comes to mind. Aside from small tweaks that most people have already mentioned, there is very little wrong with the game design.

2) Desync and server/client issues need to get better. A lot of people are experiencing this issue and it seems to be getting worse with time, which I can only imagine is due to more and more people picking up the game. On a basic level, I understand why desync happens, and will always happen, but it needs to be less impactful. I'm not a programmer nor do I know a lot about networking, but if this means getting more servers, then that's what needs to happen. If there's some other fix, then it needs to happen sooner rather than later. I would hate for this game to go the wayside because of connection issues and people just giving up on it.

Personally speaking, I've spent roughly $15 in the shop and fully intended to spend more; however, because desync is literally stripping me of certain content (for example, being able to use certain skills effectively, like cyclone and whirlwind blades; or, preventing me from actually attempting a Hardcore character), I have completely reversed this decision and will hold off to see what happens with the connection issues as this season progresses. I like the game and will continue to play it a bunch, but I can foresee myself walking away entirely if the situation doesn't change or if it gets worse. Desyncs really are that much of a negative, as many others have brought up.

All that being said, I do very much enjoy the game and think it was made well, and if it wasn't for one really, really big issue, I would be giving it 10 out of 10.

I played since closed Beta. Just came back, to check out the release version.
I'm overwhelmed how much you actually put into this game. The 3rd act is just huge.

The only thing which needs improvement (talking on a AAA level here) are maybe character animations (Scion's are nice though)and netcode. Too often you get out of sync. I know you are aware of this, I'm also aware that netcode in general is a bitch.

And on a side note i like the way you force the player to dig up the background story by himself (lore shrines/optional dialogue etc.) and not throwing everything at him for free.

Good job guys, don't let it die.

Well, I'm playing for about 3 weeks now, and really it is a great game, overall. I really like the atmosphere, which is adult (not like an other commercial game that I prefer not named), and well done, specially in Act 2 and Act 3.

Why I don't say Act 1 is great too... well, because my first impression, on Act 1, was not very good, I had think littles red monsters were a bit too colored and landscape was too static, not very dynamic, and water doesn't render your body wave. So I had think graphics were not good, frankly, until I reach Act 2, and damn good Act 3.

Something annoying too is the desync problem, when sometimes monsters disappears, and something strange too, is the not reset map on multiplayers, when we found map already done, I think it is not normal, maps should be automatically reseted when we take a new party, it must not be manually done by us (and it is not explain clearly too).

But what I found really great is characters and skills systems. Really great, so many possible combinations.

So, to resume :

Good points :
Act 2 and Act 3 ambiance and graphics
7 characters, skills and gems,
Quests freedom, mature story (18+ contents),
Free (bit good point :) )
Frequent update patches (yeah, this game's going higher and higher)
Events and ladders (I don't use it for now, but seems quite cool)
Dark ambiance
Good voices too
Works under Linux Wine too ( Linux forever :) )
Music and sound of course (really good)

Not so good points :
desync,
no auto-reset maps,
static landscapes
lack of physic behavior (on 3D engine, like Havok Physics engine for example)
Act 1 looks a bit older

Maybe an other Act will be cool too :)

I usually don't play hack&slash games, but this one is first since Diablo 2 that I find enjoyable. Game is made by small team and it's FREE. I want you developers to know that I really appreciate your effort and am grateful for the game.

Gameplay 5/5
Gameplay is most important part of game and in this game it is just great, walking around and killing monsters for no reason was never that fun, end of story.

RPG elements 5/5
Skill progression in game is probably the best I saw so far. The ability to level up in so many different directions really give sense of freedom, and ability to chose your skills through gems is also great (except that some gems is really difficult to find).

Story 2/5
I finished game 3 times on normal and I still don't know much of the story and those parts I did understand haven't impress me. But than again, there are many games with really stupid stories, so this is really not that impotant.

Economy 1/5
Economy is just terrible, worst part of the game. Bartering system is unfair to say the least (4x Jeweller's Orbs for 1x Orb of Fusing for example). Anyone that tried using Jeweller's, Fusing, Chromatic or some other orbs with idea to modify certain item, knows what I am talking about (for example, I wasted probably 40+ Orbs of Fusing trying to link 5 sockets in armor with no luck so far). My recommendation would be that Jeweller's and Fusing orbs always give +1 socket/link until they meet maximum.
Trade channel (aka spam channel) is to chaotic to use for average gamer (My friends & I abandon all hopes long ago to even pay attention to it). What this game desperately needs is some form of auction or marketplace between players.
In conclusion, this economic system can be enjoyable only to people that like farming (I really, REALLY hate farming), have masochistic tendencies or have to much free time and no challenges in real life.


Difficulty 3/5
Difficulty in normal mode is really enjoyable, not to hard, not to easy.
Difficulty in cruel mode is tricky and hard, you can play casually for some time and than meet some boss that kills you in 1-3 strikes.
Also cruel mode is really hard in Act3 for solo play (I like playing solo most of the time, it's most relaxing, no one rushing me...), for example, my 51 lvl Scion is pretty much stuck as areas with monsters lvl 48+ are to hard to play (better equipment would help, but finding it depends on luck).

Visual design 3/5
No matter what armors and staff characters wear, they look like hobos. My friends & I have quite a laugh over teamspeak by just commenting on most players visual appearance.
Most swords look good with exteption of Infernal Sword and Midnight Blade (maybe it's just me, but I can't use sword that doesn't look like one).
In total visual design isn't great, but is still better than most kitsch I see in most games.

Internet connection 1/5
I played many online games (still play several, including some net intensive like BF3...) and I never met any that have such lag as Path of Exile. Latency spikes make game really unplayable, even in solo play.

Price 5/5
Game is FREE and if there is game that deserve support, it's this one.
I really hate those FREE PAY TO WIN games (like WoT...) that are increasingly more popular.

Conclusion
Game is really great, if I was harsh on some parts it's because I care. Game is great at this point but it's still have much room for improvement.
Thank you for great game!

Just started playing and at Level 10 right now. I cannot believe this is a free game. It's better than 95% of the games they charge $50 to buy. Even the forum is better than most games. Took me a couple hours to figure out the basics of gameplay, but really enjoying it now. Just wanted to say thanks a lot.

Playing for ~3weeks. Well, the game overall is fun. Story is unappealing, trade system is utterly terrible (cant there be channels for certain lvls/classes and/or price ranges?), the community is fine and i dont know if ill play this much longer. The game story isnt very repeatable difficulty wise, it's quite annoying doing th same thigns 3 times and still getting the same shitty drops. i t feels like i have to paly this game 5 human lifetimes to get good at.

Your game rocks, after firing it up and playing for the first hour it became quite clear that i had wasted money on D3.

Already made a couple of micro transactions and will be making some more soon.

Keep up good work